1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an output device, a log collecting method for the output device, and a storage medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, in case failures occur in an output device such as a projector and an image forming apparatus, after storing operating information, status information, and error information as log information in the output device, a technology to collect the log information by using a dedicated tool on a terminal such as a personal computer (PC) and to extract the log information to removable media such as a Universal Serial Bus (USB) memory is well known.
For example, a technology to extract log information stored in an output device by using a dedicated tool to extract the log information and carrying out certain operations on a user interface (UI) including changing settings on the output device has been proposed (e.g., JP-2007-076334-A.)
Also, a technology to collect intended log information automatically by storing a log collecting definition file in an external medium and having an output device read the definition file has been proposed (e.g., JP-2007-310827-A and JP-2009-033539-A.)
However, with many conventional log collecting technologies the log acquisition process tends to be complicated due to the need for a dedicated tool to extract log information stored in the output device and the requirement to carry out a UI operation including changing of specific settings on the output device as proposed in JP-2007-076334-A. Also, in case an output device consists of a plurality of independent System On Chips (SoCs), it is necessary to acquire operating log information for each SoC by using different log information collecting methods or log collecting steps for each SoC.
Also, in the technologies proposed in JP-2007-310827-A and JP-2009-033539-A, although the log information collecting method described above can be simplified, it is necessary for the output device to check whether or not the definition file exists each time the external medium is connected regardless of executing collecting log information in the disclosed configuration. Therefore, it is highly possible to greatly affect existing functions of the output device itself since it takes time to check the log information if an external medium that includes many files is connected to the output device.